The only English flag left in Europe this season is Gloucester's cherry and white

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Gloucester might be tempted to settle for being the last English team standing in Europe, having spent last season flat on their faces and much of this one on their knees. Victory over Edinburgh in the final of the second-tier Challenge Cup in 11 days’ time is an achievable target for the Premiership club, but even if they are out-thought and outstrategised by the fast-improving Pro 12 outfit, they can at least say they were in it to win it.

All the rest have fallen by the wayside, which was not the object of the exercise as identified by the English clubs when they launched their audacious effort to wind down the old Heineken Cup and reshape northern hemisphere cross-border rugby to their own design. Last season, under what might be called the ancien régime, there were three Premiership sides in the two Euro finals, so things have hardly gone to plan.

The Celts will be as pleased as punch that the beginning of the revolutionary age has signalled a decline in red-rose fortunes: the phrase “serves them bloody well right” will not be far from the lips of certain committee types in Dublin and Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow. But they should be careful what they wish for.

English misfires in Europe merely serve to arm the free-market fundamentalists in the Premiership movement – Saracens and Bath, to name but two – with fresh reasons to demand an end to the domestic salary cap. Such a development would leave the Scots and the Welsh so far up the financial creek they would be impossible to locate without a telescope.

While the English clubs will be disappointed at the immediate return on the vast amounts of political capital they invested in getting their own way on European competitive structures, this season’s performance has been pretty much in line with events over the last decade. Three times between 2010 and 2013 the finals were a Premiership free-zone; last year’s performance was a rarity, equalled only by the 2007 campaign, when Wasps and Leicester fought out the Heineken Cup final and Bath were runners-up to Clermont Auvergne in the secondary tournament.

One man with an interesting take on the whys and wherefores of this current campaign is the Gloucester rugby director, David Humphreys, who won the big title as a player with Ulster in 1999 before managing the province to a second showpiece appearance in 2012, and can therefore see things in the round. He sees no reason for an English panic as a result of recent events in the knockout stages, where Saracens, Bath, Northampton, Wasps and London Irish all finished second to foreign opposition.

“Under the salary cap system now in place and with what’s coming on stream next season, I see absolutely no reason why English clubs can’t compete in Europe,” Humphreys said after watching Gloucester put three tries past Exeter in a 30-19 semi-final victory on Saturday night. “They certainly stack up against the Irish provincial sides in budgetary terms, and while a big French club like Toulon might simply go out there and buy themselves a team it doesn’t mean that the Premiership teams hold themselves back by doing things differently. With the right balance of signings and academy development, they can certainly challenge at Champions Cup level.”

Sadly for Gloucester, the elite tournament may well unfold without them next term. Under the new system, the Challenge Cup offers no automatic route to bigger and better things, so the Cherry and Whites, certain to miss the qualification cut through league performance, will have to beat Edinburgh and then win two play-off matches to find a way into the main event.

But those concerns are for another day. From Humphreys’ point of view, the performance against Exeter was as good as anything he had seen from his charges all season and went some way towards proving that Gloucester are finally striding confidently towards the sunlit uplands after long months and years roaming in the gloaming.

As usual, they played at a high tempo and with eye-watering levels of energy and physicality – none more than the flanker Sione Kalamafoni and Matt Kvesic, the first of whom will certainly play World Cup rugby for Tonga later this year and the second of whom will, if there is any justice, do likewise for England. There was also a striking contribution from the high-class Argentine lock Mariano Galarza on his first start for the club after long-term injury.

Unusually, they also played with considerable precision, not least in midfield, where the outside-half James Hook and the inside centre Billy Twelvetrees were at their creative best. Hook’s deft little dink for Billy Meakes’ opening try was too good for words; some of Twelvetrees’ long passing at pace was reminiscent of his early days in top-flight rugby, when it was possible to believe that England had found their own Juan Martin Hernandez.

“We’ve seen glimpses of potential throughout the season,” said Humphreys, who also revelled in a close-range try from the tireless Tom Savage and a quick-witted finish from the rejected England wing Jonny May, whose gathering of a loose pass by the Exeter prop Alex Brown and sprint to the right corner was accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. “What we hadn’t seen was an 80-minute performance like this one. What pleases me most is that we didn’t panic under pressure and that our big players made good decisions.”

It remains to be seen whether the standard of decision making will be repeated at the Twickenham Stoop a week on Friday: if it slips, an Edinburgh side prepared by the crafty South African coach Alan Solomons will be equipped to take advantage. But Gloucester, who won the Challenge Cup title at the same venue in 2006, have the taste for it now. Maybe the English-driven uprising will have been worth it after all.